Hello there

Odd weather this week - rain then strangely hot. Not sure what's going on, but luckily Marvin was so we're all fine.

So what were we up to this week on NOTP? Well, I decided the odd weather was due to the big full moon which gave me three moon songs in a row - we had a bad one rising (Creedence Clearwater Revival), a ticket to it (ELO) and, appropriately, the whole of it (The Waterboys).

Nice to have another record of the week; this time 'XX' by The XX. Not too creative on the titles front I think you'll agree, but an interesting record nonetheless. It's quite chilled and I always expect it to go somewhere but it doesn't seem to. However it does visit some dark places - think of Chris Isaak and Bowie's 'Heroes' with a touch of Berlin thrown in and you'll be getting the idea.

Keeping in the chilled summery sort of mood we featured Air's 'La Femme d'Argent' as the Long Song from their debut albu, of 1998, 'Moon Safari'.

Bernard Butler's a Spector fan and his productions bear this out. This week as the Kitsch'n'Sink contender we had 'Stay' from the imaginatively titled 'Bernard Butler'. He looks nothing like a Bernard ought to look, I always think. Or a Butler, come to that.

Gorky's Zygotic Mynci turned up as they have a tendency to do, this time in the corner of the Charity Shop with their one single on Polydor - 'Patio Song' which was well worth another outing, even if the Welsh lyrics make little sense.

Sprawled out on the back seat of the NOTP coach were Hard-Fi, The Duckworth Lewis Method, The Boo Radleys, Pulp, Seasick Steve, Ben Folds, Simon and Garfunkel, Patti Smith, The National, Marc Almond, Stornoway, The Idle Race, Peter Thorogood, Hurricane Smith, John Otway, The Youngbloods, Randy Newman and Nick Drake

Have a good week!

Glyn

"BANG Goes the Knighthood" by The Divine Comedy

I've always liked the Divine Comedy which is basically Neil Hannon and friends. Fresh from the hymn to cricket that was the Duckworth Lewis Method, Mr Hannon has produces a curate's (or should that be bishop's?) egg of an album. At his best his songs bear comparison with Brecht and Weill, his delivery with Scott Walker. At other times he delivers light-as-air tragi-comic songs in the tradition of Coward.

The opening track, the complex ‘Down In the Street Below' is as good as any he's ever written following two threads, lyrically and musically, before they intertwine in a glorious climax. This leads into an angry tirade on bankers - very funny, but we are still reeling from the opening track. And it carries on alternating like this - the title track is a clever ditty about sexual dalliance, and the most moving track, the sublime  ‘When a Man Cries' is sandwiched between two jaunty music-hall style numbers. So there are two sides as always to The Divine Comedy, as exemplified by the hommages to Magritte and Norman Jewison in the sleeve. Strange bedfellows, but in an odd way they work.

Glyn James

Greetings all!

Back to NOTP this week after Mr Horton took care of business last week, so now we can get away from Mr Smooth and back to the jagged edges we are used to.

At last I remembered to bring my Record of the Week - 'BANG goes the Knighthood' by the Divine Comedy. Three tracks from Neil Hannon's latest offering - to save you scrolling past it I've reviewed it in my previous blog.

Today astronomers have found a thumping great star, so I decided Three in a Row should feature star songs. So avoiding Simply Red, Starbuck and Stars on 45, I chose 'She's a Star' by James, 'The Prettiest Star' by Bowie and the heartbreaking  'Stars' by Janis Ian. All together now - "The stars on 45 keep on turning in your mind..."

The charity shop's stocked up again, so this week I decided to give a listen to a Daily Mirror complilation. I chose Bob and Earl's 'Harlem Shuffle'.

The Long Song was one I've been meaning to play for a while - from the album 'Crime of the Century' by Supertramp I chose 'Rudy'. That's two Long Songs I've chosen from that album!

That leaves Kitsch'n'Sink. I think I've overlooked Arcade fire for long enough, so from 'Neon Bible' we had the thunderous 'Intervention'. Alarming.

Also helping batten down the hatches were The Good, The Bad and the Queen, Efterklang, The Monochrome Set, The Doors, Teenage Fanclub, Pulp, Alphaville, Hard-Fi, Bob Dylan, Scritti Politti, Abba, Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazelwood and eels.

So that's it for another week.

Have fun

Glyn

Film reviews, 20^th July 2010

Films that have been worth looking at, let alone reviewing, have been few and far between in the past few weeks. So I was happy to devour this latest offering.

INCEPTION

Anyone familiar with Christopher Nolan's work (Memento) will know this will not be an undemanding film. However, and untypically, it is packed so full of action scenes that it doesn't really matter if you've lost track of the plot half an hour in. Taking his cues from both Kubrik's 2001 and Lewis Gilbert's ‘The Spy Who Loved Me', Nolan as writer and director spins us a story that the great Phillip K Dick would have been proud of. Wisely setting it in the present time, he introduces us to the ‘extractors' - people who are paid by large companies to infiltrate someone's dreams in order to extract sensitive information while their brain is at rest. However the best extractor in the business, Cobb, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, is approached by a businessman to go one step further and actually plant the seeds of doubt in a rival's brain while he is asleep. This means going in deep, into a dream within a dream within a dream. Trouble is, the victim has been trained to resist and this makes life very dangerous for the team. And of course Cobb has a secret that could jeapordise the whole mission.... With nice cameos from Michael Caine and Pete Postlethwaite and stunning state-of-the-art special effects, this is far more overblown than any of Nolan's earler work, but manages to make us leave the cinema satisfied but also questioning the whole story.

Also showing:-

TOY STORY 3 (3-D)

Buzz Lightyear, Woody and the crew get taken to a daycare centre. More adult than child-oriented - do the toys represent the parents and the centre the old peoples' home?

PREDATORS

Reboot of the Schwarzenegger action franchise (without Arnie) that sees a group of elite warriors hunted by members of an alien race. Violent and dull.

TWILIGHT SAGA - ECLIPSE

Bella is forced to choose between her love for Edward Vampire and Jacob Werewolf. A teenage romance with added supernature.

SHREK FOREVER AFTER

The now-domesticated green ogre is duped into signing a contract which results in him being transported to an alternate version of Far Far Away. Mike Myers, John Cleese

Hi there!

As a special treat I decided to feature 'Bang Goes the  Knighthood' by The Divine Comedy, then left it at home! How rubbish am I? Er, no, that was rhetorical, actually....

Anyway, we still had the usual old nonsense - Three in a Row featured the songwriting skills of Mr. Graham Gouldman. Before he formed 10cc - in fact before he left school - he was writing for Manchester bands The Hollies (Bus Stop), The Yardbirds (For Your Love) and Herman's Hermits (No Milk Today). Talented or what?

Kitsch'n'Sink featured Phil Spector's production of 'Unchained Melody'. No Potter's Wheel, just an immaculate production. Amd in mono too. What more could you want? OK, world peace, but if more people listened to this who knows?

Also waiting for the Tudno bus were The Jam, Elvis Costello Suede, Massive Attack, New Order, The National, Supertramp, Sleeper, ELO, Manu Chao, The Gotan Project, Nerina Pallot, Frida Hyvonen, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell and eels.

Charity shop Corner featured Armand van Helden and 'The Funk Phenomena'. The pedant within says that it should actually read 'phenomenon', but hey, who cares?

Now I know I've played it before, but I have a good reason for playing Elton John's 'Funeral for a Friend' as we're saying goodbye to my good friend Bob who sadly died last week and we're having a party tomorrow to celebrate his life . So he gets the Long Song this week. Goodbye old friend.

Mr Rob Horton will be looking after business next week so I'll see you in a fortnight - and I promise I'll bring the album of the week!

Sleep well

Glyn

Hello!

Well, despite my best efforts, the sun's still shining and it's NOTP time.

So what are we at this week? Well, Three in a Row decided to concentrate on one of my favourite subjetcts - food. So we had Supertramp's BREAKFAST in America, 10cc's 'The Second Sitting of the Last SUPPER' and Kirsty McColl and the Pogues' version of Cole Porter's wonderful 'Miss Otis Regrets (she's unable to LUNCH today)'.

Six months ago I said I wouldn't be playing any Klaatu for a while. Well, in my book six months is a while, so The Long Song tonight was 'Little Neutrino' from their debut album. I might even wait another six months for the next one. Although the Lighthouse Keeper beckons...

Charity Shop Corner tonight gave us Russ Conway's 'Lesson One' from another Sixties album. Come on, admit it, you enjoyed it!

Kitsch'n'Sink gave us NOTP's regular Nick Cave and his Bad Seeds - from 'Abbattoir Blues' we had ' Nature Boy'. Deserves to be there just because of rhyming hysteria with wisteria.

This week's Album of the Week was Stornoway's new album with the great title 'Beachcomber's Windowsill'. Sort of rocky shanties, I suppose, but worth getting used to.

 Waiting by the door for the sales to open were New Order, Unkle, Polly Scattergood, Rod Stewart (singing Tom Waits), Editors, Mike Nesmith, Elvis Costello, Randy Newman, Texas, The Divine Comedy, Teenage Fanclub, Efterklang, The XX, and Mr David Bowie.

See you next week.

Glyn

Hi there campers!

Well, this football thing's still going on and I'm pleased to say NOTP has managed to ignore the whole thing. Sorry if you tuned in (there's an old saying) last week and missed the programme  because the live feed was down due to a power cut. However I've fed the Tudno hamster and he's running round his wheel like a mad thing so we're back on air again. 

The sun's out, so what better Kitsch'n'Sink entry than 'Beach Baby' by First Class? Answers on  a postcard please....Well, they were from Croydon. Kitsch, camp, cheesy - keep 'em coming, I say, even if no-one agrees.

The Long Song could well have been a Kitsch'n'Sink contender - Trevor Horn's majestic orchestral production of the opus 'Left To My Own Devices' by the Pet Shop Boys.

Three in a Row concentrated on a singer songwriter who you don't hear a lot of - Tim Hardin. I played 'If I Were a Carpenter' by, unusually, Johnny Cash, 'How Can We Hang On To a Dream', this time by Katherine Williams and Rod Stewart's definitive rendition of the heart-rending 'Reason To Believe'. One of those tragic figures that had so much promise but died young.

Our featured album tonight was 'Infinite Suns' by Band of Horses - and not a Dobbin in sight! Perhaps a bit Americo-bland for my taste, but there are a few half-decent tunes on the album, and it does bear repeated listening.

The charity shop's getting a bit low on CDs - must try another one. Still, I did manage to find a New Country compliation that wasn't half bad - well, only half was bad - and I played 'Trigger' by Calexico.

Another NOTP scoop - well, the first actually - we had a guest in the studio! This time we welcomed Kate Crawshaw from Australia who's been a presenter on commercial radio down under and it was nice to have a chat about the different music we have, and how community radio works there. And also nice to annoy her by pretending Crowded House and Split Enz were Aussies... She introduced us to 'The Cat Empire' who sound great and I'm sure I'll be featuring them in a future show, provided I can prise it from her grasp. No marks for those who want her to be the permanent presenter of NOTP! Sadly she's soon on her way back to Oz.

Helping us get our towel onto the beach first were The Ramones, The Divine Comedy, Stornoway, Edwyn Collins, Bowie, The Beach Boys, Sleeper, Flash and the Pan, Maurice Wilson, I am Kloot and, courtesy of Kate, The Presets.

Next week I'll be featuring the album 'Beachcomber's Windowsill' by Stornoway, an album I've been enjoying very much. And I am promised that the news will be back - maybe the threat that I'd make up my own news helped.

Enjoy the sunshine!

Glyn

Film reviews 8^th June 2010

SHE'S OUT OF MY LEAGUE

Anyone who's watched a Norman Wsidom or George Formby film will have got to the end when he inevitably gets the girl (and saves the orphanage in Norman's case) can't fail to think ‘How on earth does he manage to get that gorgeous girl?'. This film takes that premise and runs with it. Our hapless no-hoper is played by Jay Baruchel who, let's face it, is no great looker. He works in airline security with wise-cracking mates and manages to find an i-Phone - not any ordinary mobile, oh no, not with Apple paying for the namecheck  - belongng to a gorgeous girl. She is so grateful that she invites him out.  The rest plays like an old-fashioned boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl, boy-gets-girl film with new-fashioned swearing and, for our younger viewers, obligatory gross-out moments.  Despite this the film is rather charming in its own way, and the lead all-American babe is surprisingly played by Alice ‘Daughter of Eddie Shoestring' Eve - and  Mum and Dad even turn up as her on-screen parents. Despite a prolonged ending that even Richard Curtis would have turned his nose up at, this is a rather sweet film that has some genuinely funny scenes in it. It's not Sex in the City, and for that we are deeply grateful.

DEATH AT A FUNERAL

If you're going to remake a film, it's a pretty good idea to make sure it's funny to start with. Sadly, Frank Oz's 2007 film of the same name didn't have this distinction. Transplanted to America, it holds the promise of a very funny black comedy - father dies with a dark secret - he has a diminutive gay lover who turns up at the funeral demanding money. But for some reason it fails to gel - Chris Rock tries his best as does veteran Danny Glover. But it smacks of script-by-committee and keeps saying ‘Aren't we daring?'. Well, not really. Evelyn Waugh's ‘The Loved One', Joe Orton's ‘Loot' or maybe even Billy Liar treats this subect with far more élan. There are a few good jokes and some funny scenes, but nowhere near enough to keep us interested.

Also showing are:-

PRINCE OF PERSIA - THE SANDS OF TIME

Video game adaptation in which a prince must keep a special dagger out of the hands of villains, with the help of a princess. Jake Gyllenhaal, Ben Kingsley, Alfred Molina.

ROBIN HOOD

Men in Green! Ridley Scott directs Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett. How an archer in Richard I's army became the legendary outlaw.

STREET DANCE 3D

A streetdance crew rehearsing for the UK Streetdance Championships is forced to join forces with Royal Ballet. Eleanor Bron and Charlotte Rampling lead the old school.

SEX AND THE CITY 2

More clothes and product placement. "Misjudged and incredibly boring". 145 minutes, mostly in Abu Dhabi (well, Morocco, actually). Everyone loves it.

TOOTH FAIRY

A tough ice-hockey player has to atone for a bad deed by spending a week as a tooth fairy. Stars Dwayne Johnson with Steven Merchant and Julie Andrews.

4.3.2.1

A chance encounter results in four female friends becoming involved in a diamond heist spanning two cities in three days

BROOKLYN'S FINEST

In the course of one chaotic week, the lives of three conflicted New York City cops are transformed by their involvement in a massive drug operation

LETTERS TO JULIET

In Verona, a group of volunteers reply to letters from around the world addressed to Juliet, setting in motion an unexpected love affair for one correspondent

THE BACK-UP PLAN

After years of waiting for the right man, a woman decides to go it alone with artificial insemination, only to meet the man of her dreams on the same day. J-Lo's worst film.

KILLERS

A woman meets her ideal man on holiday and marries him, not knowing that he is an undercover, government-hired assassin

Also CRAZY HEART; (ThCl)

Hello everyone!

Having complained there were ot many new albums out that we'd be interested in, along come several demanding attention. Crystal Castles came last week, and this week I'm featuring 'High Violet' by The National. In the next few weeks we'll be looking at (well, listening to) Band of Horses, Stornoway and the Divine Comedy to name but three, and we had a sample from each tonight, along with three tracks from High Violet.

Three in a Row featured songs that are the names of the bands that sung them, if that makes sense. Talk Talk, Living in a Box and (sorry) Love City Groove. Can't think of any more at the moment, unless you're a big fan of Stars on 45 or Teletubbies.

Charity Shop corner gave us one of those CDs that clog up the Sunday papers - News of the World this time. The CD's called 'On The Road', which suggests you drive to them. Fair enough, and there are some good tracks on it, and some duffers, naturally. I chose a live version of Yes and 'Owner of a Lonely Heart' if only to hear Trevor Horn's Non-Anderson vocals.

The Long Song was that one by Elton John that everyone remembers from 'Almost Famous' - you know, when the band's on the bus (could that be a song title?). It's 'Tiny Dancer' from 'Madman Across the Water', and goes to prove that he once had a great talent.

That leaves Kitsch'n'Sink, and this week it featured our old friend Jason 'Spaceman' Pearce aka Spiritualized and ''Lord Can You Hear Me'. Think we might have had that one before - any suggestions for big production songs?

Helping hold up the safety net were The Cult, Python Lee Jackson, The Divine Comedy, Stornoway, Band of Horses, Editors, Kenny Rogers and the First Edition, Echo and the Bunnymen, I Am Kloot, The Smiths, Love, Eliza Dolittle, Neil Young and Crazy Horse, Sparklehorse and Michael Nesmith.

Have a good week!

Glyn

Hello young bloggers

Well, it's another nice day so here we go again trying to spoil things with another Not On The Playlist. I promise not to play any more selections from the 1967 Eurovision Song Contest tonight, though Ring Ringe Ding must feature highly on someone's list (not to be confused with Teach-In's Ding-A-Dong from 1975, of course). How things have changed! Luckily I had a subsequent engagement (and no telly) so I only heard a few of this year's entries on the wireless. Still, we came a very creditable last, I think. I liked Russia's entry as it was kitsch and quite upbeat. Ah, those Russians! Strangely did you notice most of the songs - nearly all - were in English? They may hate our guts but they love our language! Maybe we should introduce a tax for all non-English speaking countries if they want to sing their songs in English. I think our next entry should be in Welsh. Well, it couldn't do any worse, could it?

Talking of kitsch, we come to tonight's Kitsch'n'Sink. A new song here, by someone who wouldn't normally trouble NOTP. Produced by William Orbit (ditto) it's Katie Melua's 'Flood' from her new album 'The House'. And, hand on heart (when I find it) I must admit it's a really well produced tune. And not a Womble in sight.

As promised, the album of the week is the new one from Crystal Castles called, rather confusingly, Crystal Castles, just like their last one. They're an Ontarian electronic noise duo, if that doesn't pigeonhole them. Some tracks are almost unlistenable, but I'll find a few that won't offend your tender ears. Maybe.

Three in a row targeted the big bankers - viz Nat (Keith) West's 'Exerpt From a Teenage Opera, BARCLAY Janes Harvest and 'Titles' and LLOYD Cole and the Commotions' 'Sweetness'. That leaves one out. Hmmm - all together now - 'It's fun to bank with the H S B C!' Maybe not.......

Long Song - this has been done before, memorably two years ago when I locked myself out of the studio and had to dismantle the door. Luckily the full version of Stevie Wonder's 'Living in the City' is long enough to allow Houdini-esque antics before it finishes. I'll make sure I have my key in my pocket tonight. It's from 'Innervisions', by the way.

That just leaves Charity Shop Corner which I'll use to demonstrate just how poor some of these compilation tracks that feature some or just one of the original members of the band can be. Vanity Fayre was the band, 'Early in the Morning' was the track and, well, it was for charity...

Hiding at the back of the room were also OMD, The National, The Beach Boys, David Bowie, Cosmic Rough Riders, Codeine Velvet Club, Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazelwood, Elvis Costello, Phenomenal Handclap Band, The Flaming Lips, Blancmange, Harry Chapin, Gorky's Zygotic Mynci, The Flying Burrito Brothers, Crosby, Stills and Nash and Harry Nilsson.

Group hug!

Glyn